Winter Break. January 2022. Day 9. The Calm Before the Storm.

Today the girls didn’t wake up until around 9:15, which was nice.

Tzvi and I had to be at the spa before 10am for our massages.  It was supposed to be 1030am, but they called yesterday to ask if we could move it earlier and said it would still last until 1130am (so we’d have a free half hour) and something about not wanting gaps in scheduling.  Alright, I’m not turning down free massage time.

We left the girls with Robyn and ran to the buffet for a quick breakfast, but who is even hungry. Then we checked in at the spa, filled out the forms, and got ready for our massage. Mr. Peyos was in the relaxation room, shirtless, as usual.  The spa was very nice and the room we were in was spacious.  I think the last massage we had on a cruise was on Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas, and the room was quite small and windowless.  This was much nicer.  My massage therapist was named Ana and she was great. [Tzvi: Something that I’ve noticed is that every time we get a couples massage there is always one masseuse who seems to be in charge.  She does all of the talking, leads us into the room, gives us the bill.  And for some reason, Steph always gets the one in charge and I get the timid one.  Anyway, not complaining.  It was a great massage.]

After our massages we got ready to sit by the pool. Hallie went to Camp at Sea and we hung out with Madeleine.

We went to the buffet for lunch.  I don’t know what the theme was but they had Madeleines, which was nice.  Hallie ate corn, hardboiled eggs and Chinese noodles, and Madeleine dipped Chinese noodles in the frosting of a donut. So yeah, we’ve just given up. We met a very nice waiter who has a 2 year old niece. She lives in Russia because her father is an engineer, but they are some other nationality, I forget. Anyway, the girls liked watching the videos of the niece.

Then, it was naptime for Madeleine. We went back to the room and she was on Hallie’s bed for like two seconds and then she fell off. I don’t think she was badly hurt, but she was scared, but it was also funny. Lucky for me we happened to be facetiming my mom when it happened. Anyway, then she napped, and then she woke up. Unharmed (at least none that we can see).

I don’t really remember the afternoon, it was some combination of Camp for Hallie, some pool time, and Robyn went to an art thing. Somehow the afternoon kind of went off the rails as we skidded toward Shabbos.  The art guy was running late, so by the time Robyn got back and I got to the hot tub I only had about ten minutes, at which point Tzvi went to get drinks, and by the time he got to the hot tub it was time for me to leave.

I went back to the salon for a 5pm hair appointment. Today we decided to keep my hair curly, so she put in all these products and then diffused it. I told Tzvi I wanted everyone ready to go by 5:30 so we could take photos before dinner and not be rushed. Well, at 5:20 Tzvi was still at the hot tub.  “I lost track of time.” Yea.

[Tzvi: At some point I was in the hot tub with a big group of people and an older Lebanese man asked me if I was British.  Then I was in another hot tub where a man asked me where my family was from.  Apparently, people are very interested in my background here.]

Tonight was the second “chic” night and I wore the dress that I bought when we were honored at the shul dinner. I think it was me and maybe five other people wearing like gowns, but I don’t care because I needed to wear this dress somewhere. Somehow we managed to get Madeleine to smile for a photo, so a celebration was had by all.

Dinner tonight was at Cosmopolitan again and this time we ordered fully kosher. We ordered steaks, lamb chops, and then some packaged challah, a turkey thing, and soup. The soup was the only thing that was inedible. We had a nice conversation with one of the Maître D’s who said he was kind of in charge of all the kosher stuff for the ship, just because he’s had a lot of experience with it. He told us how people come with different levels of strictness and how on this cruise “people aren’t so strict.”  We had the same waiter we had the first night we ate at Cosmopolitan.  His name was Rodrigo from the Philippines and we kept apologizing that the kids were making such a mess.  He told us he’s been working for Celebrity for 20 years and his son just graduated college and is about to start working in Guest Relations on another Celebrity ship, and he’s hoping that soon they can work on the same ship.  Nice man.

The show tonight featured the singers and dancers again. They were good, but the show was weird.  It was all modern pop music, and the main character was a guy who was very sad throughout the whole show.  We couldn’t really figure out the story and Hallie kept asking why he was so sad.  Surprisingly, the girls sat through it!  After the show we walked around a little and then I took Madeleine back to the room to put her to bed while Tzvi took Hallie to the pool deck where the silent disco was happening.  [Tzvi: Hallie wasn’t interested in trying it out so we just sat and watched people dancing to no music.  Then we played some cornhole.]

It was after 10pm by the time we got the girls to bed and then we rushed to the theater for the Liars Club.  Apparently this is something they do on other Celebrity ships but it was the first time they were doing it on Edge.  (It’s based on an old game show from the 1970s.)  Basically, the host gives a panel of three participants a word that sounds made up, and they each have to give a definition, but only one of them is telling the truth, and then the audience votes for which one they think is real.  The host was a member of the Cruise Director’s staff, and the three panelists were Captain Tasos, our Greek captain, the Cruise Director (Rich from Las Vegas) and the Concierge (David from Jamaica).  I think it was one of the best things we saw on the cruise.  The Captain is really hilarious and had the best dry delivery.  Every time it was his turn to talk he began again, “Good evening, everybody.”  I don’t remember that much of the show but I remember one of the words was “Fullfart.”  The Cruise Director said it meant a very fast game of golf.  David the Jamaican concierge told a story about being on the bridge of a Norwegian cruise ship and a slovenly captain yelling Fullfart, because it means “Full speed ahead” in Norwegian.  Then the Captain told a story about being on a date with his ex-ex-ex girlfriend Dimitroula.  He explained the difference between quarter fart, half fart, and fullfart.  Apparently it really is Norwegian for “Full speed ahead.”  Anyway, it was all really funny.

From there we went to the Grand Plaza and had our nightly Kahlua pastries.  Good day.  I can’t believe there’s only one full day left.